ON TWO VARIETIES OF FALSE JALAP. 
149 
The wide range of solvent power which the above facts indicate, 
promises that chloroform will prove a most valuable auxiliary to 
the analytical chemist, and especially in proximate analysis. A 
valuable pharmaceutical application may be made in the means 
it affords of readily separating resin of guaiac, from jalap resin, 
cinchonia from quinia, and narcotine from morphia. 
M. Augendre, of Constantinople, found that milk mixed with 
one per cent, of chloroform, was preserved for a month in a cork- 
ed bottle, from 10th of April to 12th of May unchanged, and 
could be boiled without coagulating. 
OX TWO VARIETIES OF FALSE JALAP. 
By John H. Currie. 
Two different roots have for some time back been brought to the 
New York market for the purpose of adulterating or counterfeiting 
the various preparations of Jalap. They differ materially from 
the Mechoacan and other varieties of false Jalap which formerly 
existed in our markets, as described by Wood and Baehe in the 
United States Dispensatory, while some of the pieces bear no 
slight resemblance to the true root. The specimens I have been 
able to procure are so imperfect, and so altered by the process of 
drying, that the botanists I have consulted are unable to give any 
information even as to the order to which they belong. I have 
not been able either to trace their commercial history, nor do I 
know how, under the present able administration of the law for 
the inspection of drugs, they have obtained admission to our port. 
The article or articles, since there are at least two of them, come 
done up in bales like those of the true Jalap, and are probably 
brought from the same port, Vera Cruz. 
No. 1 appears to be the rhizome or underground stem of an 
exogenuous perennial herb, throwing up at one end each year one 
or more shoots, which, after flowering, die down to the ground. 
It comes in pieces varying in length from two to five inches, and 
in thickness from the third of an inch to three inches. In some 
13* 
